Perfect Man
by floatsodelicately
Summary: Percy decides that Molly's interference in Hermione's love life needs to stop.


A.N. This is for the Shakespeare Challenge, A Midsummer Night's Dream category, I'm putting off writing my essay about the play by writing a story based on it…ok…Also, there's a terribly written Scottish accent in here, I apologise.

_A Midsummer's Night Dream: _This is a play where love is all mixed up between four people. A fairy named Puck keeps messing up and changing who they love, until he finally gets it right. So write about a person who keeps meddling in people's love lives: Genre: Humor or Romance.

* * *

_"With them in my corner, I'm sure that it's a tall order,_

_To find that perfect man."_

_Perfect Man – Rufus Wainwright_

* * *

Today was Wednesday. Wednesday meant the Weasley family dinner.

It wasn't that she didn't want to go, she did, she loved seeing the family and playing with the kids and catching up with everyone…but Molly…Hermione's surrogate mother had taken an obscene amount of interest in her love life. She could understand that Mrs Weasley wanted her to settle down and get married and have children and be happy, but Molly's hints weren't hints anymore. There were always _nice young men_ that she had _bumped into_ on her last trip to Diagon Alley or at the Ministry when she met Arthur occasionally. Sometimes, these _nice young men_ owled her, or visited her office – much to her annoyance – and she felt that Molly might take it up a notch soon.

Hermione had declined, avoided, ignored and dodged all of Molly's attempts to set her up. She was happy. She didn't need to be joined at the hip to someone like Bill and Fleur, or, _Merlin forbid_, attached at the face like Won-Won and Lav-Lav in order to lead a fulfilled life. She had her friends, her family, her career…

And she _did _have someone. But Molly didn't need to know about that yet.

Hermione smoothed out her skirt as she stepped away from the floo, brushing off the soot that clung to her clothes. Seeing that there was no one in the living room, she moved through to the kitchen to greet Molly as she prepared dinner.

"Good evening, Molly," she greeted happily as the woman turned away from the hob and hugged her fiercely.

"Oh, Hermione dear! Are you hungry? You must be, you work far too much. Almost as bad as Percy, he never has time to visit anymore...anyway, dinner will be ready soon, we're eating out in the garden," Molly rambled on as she shooed Hermione out of the kitchen – Hermione's magical brilliance did not extend to the cooking charms that Molly used, unless she cooked the muggle way, she was prone to starting fires or at least burning a few things. "Oh, before you go," Molly started, "There's a guest round for dinner tonight, so if you could be a dear and make sure that he's seen to, I'm ever so busy with all of the…cooking and the…well, go on outside!"

Hermione decided not to make a fuss, the last time she had tried to dissuade Molly from her match-making, she had ended up listening to a very odd story about a woman that she once knew that never married and had 37 cats and when she died, they ate her, "They _ate _her, Hermione! What if Crookshanks ate _you_?!"

She left the kitchen and walked into the garden, seeing the table lit up with floating candles and lanterns as Bill and Charlie had arranged the large number of chairs as best as they could around the long table. She reached the large group of people that weren't yet all seated and looked around, Fred and George were talking in whispers that indicated that there was something on the table that she should try to avoid if she didn't want to be pranked, beside them, George's girlfriend Angelina was talking to Ginny about their new Quidditch plays as Angelina had just made captain of their team. Fleur was sitting with Victoire on her knee as the toddler babbled nonsensically to her grandfather as she showed him her favourite dolly once more.

Hermione walked over to Percy who smiled sweetly at her and passed her a drink. She looked to his companion and was surprised to see Oliver Wood, Percy's friend from Hogwarts and Keeper and Captain of the Puddlemere United team.

"Oliver! Hi!" Hermione beamed at him and hugged him in greeting, not noticing the puzzled looks from some of the group and the excited jump from Molly who was watching through the kitchen window.

The Scot chuckled at her enthusiasm and picked her up, ruffling her hair when he set her down, "Hi there 'Mione, take it ya weren't expectin' me then?"

"You never mentioned anything. Percy? Did you know?"

Percy frowned for a moment, "Not until a few hours ago, no. You think that…?" he trailed off.

Hermion nodded, "Apparently there's a guest that I need to make sure is 'seen to', I'm guessing that's Oliver."

Oliver winced slightly, "So she hasn'ae given up then?"

Hermione sipped from her glass before grumbling, "No, she hasn't. I wish that she would give up, it's all of this pressure that-"

"Dinner!" Molly called as she appeared in the garden and plates of food began zooming out from the kitchen to settle on the table.

The group took their seats, with Molly ordering some of them – _Hermione_ – into specific seats – _beside Oliver_ – and started dishing out and tucking into their meals. The chatter ranged from the news, to the kids, to work, flowing continuously as it always did with the ever-growing Weasley family. Hermione was seated between Oliver and Percy, thankful that they could possibly protect her from Molly's '_helpful pushes_', though it wasn't enough. The trio were seated opposite Ginny, Harry, Teddy in his highchair, Ron and Lavender.

Teddy never interfered in her love life, being a toddler, he only beamed at his Auntie Miney as he spooned his dinner into his mouth, missing occasionally and grimacing as Harry wiped his cheeks clean. The boys were also fine, they talked Quidditch or cases over Teddy's head and sometimes deflected the questions for her.

It was Ginny and Lavender that presented the problem. Ginny was her best female friend, and was constantly on the lookout for someone that Hermione could settle down with. After setting her up on a date without her knowledge and receiving a howler for her troubles when Cormac McClaggen turned up on Hermione's doorstep, she decided that she would be less forward about it. Lavender's motivations were far different. Hermione's presence in the Weasley family irked her, she was one of them without being attached to any of them and Mr and Mrs Weasley clearly still preferred Hermione over her, the whole family did. Lavender's constant jabs at Hermione went unnoticed by Ron, oblivious as always, but always sparked a fire in the other Weasley's eyes that stopped her from going _too far_.

A little while later, Molly's voice drifted down to Hermione from a few seats away, "Hermione, dear, did you know that Oliver is the seeker on his team?"

"Keeper, actually," Hermione corrected, groaning internally when she saw the twinkle in Molly's eye.

"A keeper, you say?" Molly smiled wryly.

"Aye Mrs Weasley," Oliver said, glancing uncomfortably at Hermione and Percy before excusing himself to the bathroom.

Molly waited until the door to the house closed before turning to Hermione, "What do you think?"

Hermione sighed before putting down her fork, glancing sadly at her favourite Weasley dish – Arthur's mother's recipe for beef stroganoff – that she knew she wouldn't be able to finish when she talked this out with Molly. "Dinner is lovely," she smiled, attempting to avoid the real question.

"Not that," Molly waved off impatiently. "Oliver! He's a lovely young man-"

"I know, but-" Hermione interrupted.

"-with a good, interesting career-" Molly continued.

"I don't even like Qui-"

"-I think that you'd make a lovely couple if you'd-"

"Please stop this, Mrs Weasley. I know that you're concerned for me and I'm very flattered that you care so much but-"

"Hermione, dear, if it's because you're shy then there's no need to be. You're a beautiful young woman and any man would be lucky to have you. If it's Oliver that you don't like then there's always that lovely McMillan boy, I saw his mother yesterday at the market and she said that he's still single. You could owl him and-"

"NO!"

The table fell into silence as their heads turned to the new voice that entered the almost weekly conversation that the two stubborn women had.

"Percy," Molly started, confused, "What are you-?"

"No! You need to stop this now! I'm sick of it! You do this every week and-"

Hermione put a calming hand on Percy's arm, baffling the dinner guests even more, "Perce, calm down, it's fine."

"No it's not fine, it needs to stop!"

"Are you sure?" she asked quietly, looking up at him with uncertain eyes.

He gave her a small smile back before reaching his other hand over to cover hers, "I'm sure."

"What's going on?" George's voice came from the other end of the table. "I can't _'ear_ you," he grinned cheekily as Angelina smacked his arm for yet another terrible ear pun.

"Hermione and I are getting married," Percy stated simply, picking up his glass to hide his smile as his sibling choked on air and spluttered out their surprise. He swallowed his pumpkin juice before turning to his mother, "I would very much appreciate it if you stopped trying to set my fiancé up on dates. Especially with my _gay _best friend."


End file.
